Stocks gain

The Standard & Poor’s 500 added 3.4 percent to a four-month high of 907.24, erasing its previous loss for 2009. The Dow Jones industrial average gained 214.33 points to 8,426.74. The Nasdaq gained 44.36 to 1,763.56.

Home sales

Pending sales of US existing homes posted their first back-to-back gain in almost a year in March and construc tion spending ended a six-month slide.

Alls Wells

Wells Fargo rose 24 percent to $24.25, the highest since January. Warren Buffett, whose Berkshire Hathaway is the company’s largest shareholder, said that while he’d “love” to buy the entire bank, he is un able to because Berk shire wouldn’t get per mission from regulators.

JPM $ale

JPMorgan Chase plans to sell $5 billion of bonds backed by credit-card payments in the largest offering through the Fed eral Reserve’s Term As set-Backed Securities Loan Facility (TALF) pro gram to jumpstart lend ing, a source said.

More stress

The US government will “quietly move on” to stress test the next 20 to 30 largest US banks after completing exams this week on 19 lenders, said Howe Barnes Hoefer & Arnett.

MGM falls

MGM Mirage said first- quarter profit fell 11 per cent to $105.2 million, or 38 cents a share, from $118.3 million, or 40 cents, a year earlier. Revenue tumbled 20 percent to $1.5 billion from $1.88 billion.